COLLAGE FORMULA - To Make Collage EASIER

hello everyone it's natasha from treasure books so i have come up with a collage formula to help myself when collaging so that i know exactly what things to use and what to put where and this makes it easier for me the whole collaging process is not as messy and it doesn't take as long because i don't have to overthink things so looking at these they all look completely different and individual but i've actually used the exact same things in the exact same order and that's what the formula is all about and i'm i'm about to share this with you it's nothing complicated it's quite simple really and it gives you a starting point and once you know what you're doing you're not going to need any type of formula and after a few that you make things are just going to come naturally to you but until then this is going to help so in terms of using these obviously you can do something like this in your junk journals art journals but i made the individual pieces because i think they look really nice on book covers and journals that i make and sell and they look really really nice and they actually look quite nice framed too and look at this in your journal how beautiful does that look the whole thing can be an art journal made of collages and little individual art pieces all right well let's get started with that formula okay i'm going to make three on screen today i'm going to use black paper white paper and blue paper that's been coffee dyed so this is going to be my base your base can be a page in your journal right the next thing that i need is some craft paper and i'm actually using this paper that's come from some packaging from some orders that i had it can also be paper bags and things like that anything that's you know this kind of color and maybe it's got a little bit of texture you can maybe scrunch it up just gives it another dimension next thing we want is some book pages another thing we want is some pretty paper now a lot of things can fall into this category so it can be like handmade paper like this it can be a doily these these work really really well in collages maybe some wallpaper this is an actual wallpaper but it looks like wallpaper so something that has some sort of an effect preferably even some texture something that will stand out and look a little bit different then we just want some plain paper i have used this one in all of the collages that i've just shown you so it can be just plain paper it can be lined paper it can be coffee dyed paper you know whatever and then probably the most important thing of the of the collaging process is a focal point so i've already chosen some for this video uh we can have some die cuts like this uh magazine images this is from book this little angel so you can get oh why am i holding this this is also a fussy cut out from a book or a magazine i can't remember then i'm going to use one of these little guys i showed this in my last video i got it from stationary pal and it's full of this amazing these amazing images which make collaging so much easier look at this one beautiful i mean i can use either one but i'm going to use this one for this video so those are the five main elements and then we're going to place them down and then you might want to use some quotes some sentiments this is a sentence that i cut out of a book page and having something like this adds more interest to your collage piece and then over here i've got extras such as washi tape stamps letters i'm going to use some of my washi tapes like this maybe and then let's see maybe what this is on my desk let's see what else this is on my desk i don't know if i'm gonna use this because it doesn't really go with anything but you know circles shapes maybe some like random numbers like this i haven't used any of these yet but all of these extras will give more interest obviously to the collage but these are all optional the main thing that we need for now are the first five and perhaps the sentiment and all of these other things can just be sprinkled on top if we feel like it at the end so i am going to begin collaging and i'm going in this exact order all right so my base is here laid out ready and i have just ripped down some of that craft paper i'm gonna place it down and i want uneven edges and a lot of this is going to be speeded up as well my next section is some book pages that i have also ripped down to have that uneven edge my next step is some pretty paper so i might use a doily on this one here and then some of this pretty paper on these ones but this one has straight edges and it's very hard to rip actually so i'm just going to use my zigzag scissors to get a bit of an effect on those edges there we go that's looking good so far my next step i don't know if i mentioned i'm going to put this up at the end so that you can see but it's not fitting into the screen now all right so after the pretty paper my next step is some plain paper so i'm just using this and i'm just gonna use the same for all three and i'm actually keeping this one strangely enough i'm not gonna rip into it i'm gonna keep those straight edges all right so i've just placed that down nothing i'm not committed to any placement yet i can still move this around because i haven't really glued anything down yet and my next step is the focal point and i'm going to use some of these things that i have chosen so i'm going to use this one on the black there i'm going to use the angel over here and the butterfly over here and i also wanted to use this one because it goes really beautiful with the blue so something like that and now what i do when i'm at this point is i'm just going to maneuver things around and place them how i want them and before i glue everything down the main thing that i sort of keep in mind when collaging is that the focal point is not in the center i mean it can be it's no big deal but i think uh it's nicer if i was in in one of the corners like in you know around these four points so it can be done here can be over here over here or over here so we are trying to create a sort of um pathway for the eye to travel so the eye always goes to the focal point and that's why i'm trying to find where i'm going to place my focal point so far i'm actually liking how this looks the only thing is these white pieces of paper are really standing out so i'm going to have to keep adding something there make it less obvious right i'm liking this one as it is and i think for this one here i might you know just play around with displacement just for a little bit if i like that maybe i want to add a little bit more i think that looks better so for this one i've added two of the pretty paper right i can add a doily too like this is the good thing about collaging once you start you know it's just like that looks good too you know but i like it better like this but i want to also get rid of these straight edges here now i am going to glue everything down but i am also going to be using a sentiment for each one so before i glue everything down i want to kind of see where i will be putting the sentiment so i have this tim hot holds book of little sentiments i like this one here don't forget to fly because i guess you want the sentiment or the phrase that you use to somehow go with whatever the collage is right i'm just kind of loosely placing it down and i think for this bird because it's kind of looking back i'm going to use this one here that says see possibility everywhere and that might go somewhere somewhere there we shall see but i've got these two ready and i'm going to apply them when everything else is glued down and i also wanted to apply some of my beautiful washi tapes that i have from the washi tape shop and i'm going to do this after i've glued everything down but before i glue everything down i want to ink the edges because i just want to show you i'm going to do all of the inking off screen so that we're not wasting time but i just want to show you how inking the edges actually makes everything stand out and it gives so much more dimension to the to the piece so you can see straight away how much that added to this piece all right i'm gonna go ahead i'm to ink literally all of the edges including the book page i might do this at the end the actual base and then i'll be back these little plain pieces of paper i sort of go over them completely so they're not so starkly white i mean they can be but you know i like this look better than this here i mean it's not such a huge difference but that's what i've been doing with these and if you're using coffee dyed paper and then even better and also i ink the doily as well so they're quite you know fiddly and delicate so i just put it down and go over it with my ink blender here we go okay so everything is inked and ready to be glued down which is my next step i'm going to glue everything down a good thing to do is to take a photo at this stage so that you know where you want to be placing things once you're happy with them and then remove things and start gluing them down just want to go back to the focal point for a moment because i don't think i've mentioned when i'm thinking of where i want my focal point to be i think about it this way so if you just divide your page into three i mean i didn't really do this well but you get the idea so i'm dividing it into three this way and into three this way the four focal point should be somewhere around here i mean i don't think it should be but it usually works if the focal point is not here in the center not here in the corner or here in the corner you know but we're looking at these four areas i hope that's helpful it has been helpful to me so you can see when for example when you look at this piece the eye immediately goes to the eyes and those eyes are in this section here so that's kind of what i look at the butterfly the eye will immediately go to the butterfly and then when we add other things like the sentiment for example what happens is the eye travels straight over here and then you want it to move elsewhere so it might go to the sentiment if i put something here or here the eye might do this it will go here then it will travel up here then it will travel there so you want to create a story kind of i guess all right so for the gluing i think i'm just going to do one on camera it will be speeded up but just so you can sort of see how i'm gluing things down so basically i'm going to take everything off and glue everything piece by piece and i know sometimes people glue from top down so they will glue the first piece up the top for example let's look at this they'll take this and they'll glue that to that and then i don't know i don't actually know how it works but this is how i do it and i'm just using a tacky glue or pva glue it's it does warp the paper this glue that i'm using does worth it warp the paper a little bit but it doesn't bother me because it's a collage i don't mind that effect and i also do lay it under something heavy all right my next piece was the book page i didn't take a photo so i'm not entirely sure where i'm supposed to place everything and it's because i am filming with my phone so i don't have a phone to take a photo with so i'm just gonna have to wing it all right so next i'm going to place the doily and i'm just trying to work out because i didn't take a photo i'm not sure if this was underneath like so or if it was on top or or i don't actually think it matters but i think i'm going to put it underneath someone actually left a comment recently on one of my videos about collaging how it's you know totally messy and and a waste of time something like that the comment went i don't really like how this is looking i'm noticing something here that i haven't noticed before i'm noticing this section here and i'm not liking it so anyway this person said something like um you know how collage is messy and it takes too much time and it's pointless or something like that and i thought it doesn't have to take too much time if you just you know place a few things down it's done it can really be done in five minutes so that's that one but i'm really not liking this section here so i really need to come up with something before everything dries and i'm just improvising here this will do and the thing is back to the collage thing and that comment collage is one of the things that i can't do and i'm always trying to find you know i see all this wonderful work that other people do and i think with a bit of practice i can do it too and these ones that i made i actually really like them the ones that i showed you and i thought you know if i had a proper formula i keep calling it a formula but i i guess it is a formula if i know exactly what i need to use this paper this paper this paper and then put the focal point down and you know it will just make it easier for me so that's why i'm doing this because i am learning and hopefully you know it's working and hopefully it's helping you guys this one is glued down so now i have to glue the other two i might do that off camera and then i will come back and we will finish these off all right so everything is glued down and now all i have to do is add some finishing touches so i might be using some of my washi tapes i have to use these sentiments just to add you know more meaning to the collage and then i might use a stamp here and there i'm going to do all of these individually so you can see exactly what i'm doing and i might start off with this black one so as you can see this one here it's definitely missing a lot it's missing life it's very empty looking so i'm going to start off with perhaps adding a little bit of washi tape you can use like pretty scrapbook paper or you know whatever you have on hand this is washi tape from the washi tape shop and i'm just ripping the edges and i might rip the edge up the top as well just so that i don't have those very straight lines and if you do go to the washi tape shop i have a code that you can use i think it's treasure 10 i'm going to link everything down below so i'm placing this maybe somewhere over here and you can see that i'm leaving all of these layers visible underneath so now i'm going to add a sentiment here and it was this one that i decided to go with see possibility everywhere and of course i'm just going to get rid of that stack whiteness and just apply a little bit of glue make sure it stays down and i might put it i don't know maybe i should put it here maybe in the middle really anywhere i put it i will look okay but i think i'm just going to put it over here for now well not for now it's glued down now so it's staying there so that's already looking quite rich i think now this area here is very stark and it needs something so maybe i can add a stamp and this is the scary part because if i mess this up then you know i have to come up with solutions that looks good and then maybe one more here so now you can see all of these things that the eye looks at so we go over here we're looking at the details there the stamp the sentiment and now i think i need something over here so all of these are little details that we're now adding so maybe i can use my punch to get some circle shapes you know and and put them sprinkle them sort of you know around wherever i think they're gonna look nice but i also have a little bit of this gold paper left so i think these butterflies are going to look nice i know it's gonna work and now i'm seeing this here which is in in this handmade paper i haven't noticed that before i don't know how i feel about that i feel like it's messing with my butterflies because this here i haven't noticed that before and now all i'm seeing is this but the whole point of this exercise is just to put things down and not overthink so i'm just gonna glue that there and be done with it and here we go i'm quite uh happy with how this one came out so you know i could kind of keep going and maybe i could add a little bit of this over here but i don't want to make it too cluttered and too busy and i think i'm going to leave this one as it is i just need to i'm going to round the corners and then because it's black i want to emphasize the edges somehow and i'm just going to use i don't know what this is it's nothing special it's just a gold pencil it doesn't actually look gold on white paper and that's why i'm saying it's nothing special it just looks brown or beige but i'm going to use that to emphasize the edges so i'm just going to apply a little bit all around and there we go it's not really showing there but when i put it against the black cover then you can see that you know you can see the edges it's not blending in completely all right there's that one and i followed the same kind of thing that i did on this one here so you can see the similarities i've just kind of changed the placement of the sentiment and you know the the way everything is ripped and the size of the book pages all of these things differ so they all do end up looking a little bit different okay now i'm going to do this one and i said i'm going to use this sentiment don't forget to fly i just want to work out where i'm going to put it this here looks like a really good place for it i think so now i can't decide and when you're having trouble deciding with any collage then they say if you turn it upside down it would make your straightaway see i think the issue is that i didn't ink the edges and it kind of doesn't look like it belongs anywhere i think i'm going to put it here and i'm thinking if i just add something like this is it taking away from everything if i do a thinner washi tape yeah oh this is what i'm going to do because i feel like perhaps it balances everything out a little bit better because we now there's something happening in this corner as well not everything is happening over here okay i'm going to finish it off by rounding the corners and inking the edges and then i'm going to decide if i need anything else you know i think i'm going to leave this one as it is but i'm just adding a little bit more inking and there we go i'm pretty sure that that one is done i don't need to add anything else and now my very last one this one here i'm i'm going to add washi tape to this one and i think this washi tape is perfect just added a little bit of glue and now to balance everything out i want to use a little bit of washi tape up here but i want uneven edges there we go and now i'm going to add a sentiment so i'm going to use black something black because there's black in the butterfly so let's see maybe this one is good collect beautiful moments and i'm going to put it right over here just like that and then of course this white paper is so stuck first thing i'm going to do is ink the edges and then maybe i can add some little extras like this just maybe get some of these circles here we go i've added a little circles here and there and now another thing that we can do is add some corners over here if i had enough of this left i would just cut a little triangle like this and glue it in the all of the four corners but i don't have any of that so i'm going to use these ones they gold photo corners i got them from some second hand shop years ago and i've been hoarding it because it's pretty cool so i'm gonna use those here we go i think these gold corners finished everything off beautifully and it's always those little last touches that make everything work and ties everything together so those are my three pieces i'm i will be leaving this under something heavy so that it dries nice and flat like the other ones did i think this one here is my favorite even though on screen it's coming up really really white it's actually not so stuck in real life and then i would say this one and then my third favorite would be this one here i'm going to show you these are the ones that i've done in just a little bit more detail and then i will put that formula up for you so you can use the focal point as a book plate which is what i did on this one here i actually think out of all of them this one is my favorite and you can see that i've done the exact same thing as i did on all of these other ones we have the craft paper we have the book page we have a doily or pretty paper or whatever here is my focal point which happens to be a book plate and then i have washi tape here and a die cut there so this one actually has you could say two focal points this one and this one so it was a little bit hard to kind of place it so it's not they're not competing with each other but overall i'm this is my absolute favorite one here uh this one is my least favorite out of all of them i kind of didn't even want to show it but i mean it's not too bad it's just got too much stuff happening i have this picture here and it was too dark and then i went and added more little things and it just wasn't working then i added this washi tape here and here it's still okay it's not bad but out of all of them it's my least favorite one this one here i've just used a cut out little rose from i'm not sure some flower book or something like that you can see the elements exactly the same as all of them right and i have a sentiment here that says grateful and i've just added the washi tape and that's it done and it's quite nice i quite like this one very simple this one here we've done the five elements and then i've added a stamp and some little butterflies here and it says you are so lovely he's looking at her and you know i was kind of looking for sentiments that go with whatever is happening in the focal point unless it's something like this a flower like grow would be nice or something will blossom or bloom or something like that but i didn't have anything like that so i used grateful this one here is just pretty much similar to what i've done over here oh and look at this just realize when i put this on a black back look how beautiful that looks but yeah these two are quite similar i used pretty much the same thing you can see the gold corners you can see all of the elements the butterflies the sentiments the washi tape pretty much the same and then these two here i've already shown you as well pretty much did the same thing on both of them apart from changing where i put the sentiment and the washi tape looks a little bit different but pretty much the same thing putting things down it just seems so easy but probably to some people it is very simple and straightforward and they can just do a collage in five minutes but for me i was struggling so this is why i'm here today because i wanted to share the formula keep calling it a formula i'm not sure if that's what you would call it of you know the process right so i hope that you have gained something from it please let me know and if you have any questions let me know i'm gonna place the formula on screen now so you can take a screenshot i think i after doing these eight or nine or ten collages that i've done i feel more confident now in adding extra pieces so instead of using just one piece of pretty paper right i can use three so i can do the doily i can do the handmade paper and i can do you know like something like this wallpaper so what i'm trying to say is that now i feel more confident in adding more and more layers rather than just having you know five i can have a lot more right but anyway this is my collage formula i hope that it was helpful for you thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in my next video bye

Channel: Treasure Books

Views: 43,800

Rating: 4.9814558 out of 5

Keywords: collage formula to make collage easier, easy collage steps, collage formula, collage technique, collage tutorial, collage tutorials youtube, simple collage, art collage, collage in a junk journal, collage for beginners, paper collage, creating collage, trasure books, treasure books youtube, how to make a junk journal, junk journal page ideas, art journal page ideas, junk journal, layout ideas, collage techniques for beginners, junk journal ideas, junk journal tutorial

Id: C9T4RORuRcE

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021